Twitter Releases App for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7

Twitter on Thursday unveiled its official app for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform.

Twitter on Thursday unveiled its official app for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform.

Twitter for Windows Phone is available now for all Windows Phone devices. The smartphones made their debut in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand on Oct. 21 and the first Windows Phone for the U.S., the Samsung Focus, will hit stores on Nov. 8.

"We want you to be able to get Tweets quickly and easily, no matter what device you're using, and the clean design of the Windows Phone platform is particularly great for this," Leland Rechis, product manager for Twitter mobile, wrote in a blog post.

The Windows Phone 7 version includes all the usual Twitter features - timeline, suggested users, messages, and lists. Users can explore without signing in or sign up for an account from the app. Rechis also promised a fast, responsive experience.

The Windows Phone 7 user interface, which Twitter dubbed Metro, incorporates something called Pivots, or pages of the app.

"Pivots allow you to swipe left or right to view different categories or types of information within a single application," Rechis wrote. "For example, in Twitter for Windows Phone, you can swipe left or right to move from your timeline to mentions to direct messages."

Twitter partnered with a company called Identity Mine for the app. They used Tweet Shartp, an open source REST API library, as the foundation for its app so Identity Mine can release some significant improvements back into open source community, Rechis said.

Chloe Albanesius has been with PCMag.com since April 2007, most recently as Executive Editor for News and Features. Prior to that, she worked for a year covering financial IT on Wall Street for Incisive Media. From 2002 to 2005, Chloe covered technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from American University...
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